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A Workshop of Roman Sculptors at Carlisle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

E. J. Phillips
E. J. Phillips
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
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Extract

The popular sculptures of the Roman Empire were for the most part produced by local artists working on behalf of local patrons. This is often clear both from their distinctive regional characteristics and from their geographical distribution. Any community of sufficient size to provide sculptors with a living would have had at least one workshop with its favourite motifs, types of monuments and stylistic idiosyncracies. The minimum size of a community necessary for the establishment of a workshop there to be an economically viable proposition cannot be determined, and the possibility that some sculptors had to supplement their incomes by other means is not to be ignored. Usually the area served by a workshop was restricted to the town in which the workshop was situated and its immediate vicinity. Although sculptures occasionally travelled further, there was no export trade comparable in scale to that in high-quality classical sculpture of the type sometimes labelled Hofkunst or arte colta. That Roman Carlisle should have had a workshop of its own is, in the circumstances, a reasonable supposition. Evidence for the activity of such a workshop is provided principally by a group of interrelated gravestones, which bear the reliefs of women and children and which have been found at Carlisle itself, Bowness-on-Solway and Old Carlisle. Since Carlisle was the largest community in the area and since most of these gravestones have been found there, it would appear to have been the centre of production.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 7 , November 1976 , pp. 101 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © E. J. Phillips 1976. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 E.g. the large grave monument of the Concordii at Boretto in North Italy. The style and type of stone shows that it came from Brescia, about 75 km away as the crow flies. See Aurigemma, S., Rivista dell' Istituto Nazionale di Archeologia e Storia dell' Arte iii (1931), 268 ffGoogle Scholar. The theory of Kewley, J., Antiq. Journ. liv (1974), 53–65, that a workshop at Lanchester or Chester-le-Street exported altars over a wide area is largely unconvincing owing to the difficulty of defining features that are sufficiently distinctive and were consistently employed by the workshop.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Works of imported marble, such as those from the Walbrook Mithraeum, London, and good-quality bronzes belong to this category.

3 Ferguson, R. S., Arch. Journ. xxxvi (1879), 177–8Google Scholar; Trans. Cumberland & Westmorland Arch. Soc.1 iv (1878–1879), 177–8; F. J. Haverfield, A Catalogue of the Roman Inscribed and Sculptured Stones in the Museum, Tullie House, Carlisle ed. 2 (1922), No. 103; J. M. C. Toynbee, Art in Roman Britain ed. 2 (1963), 161, No. 89; R. P. Wright and E. J. Phillips, A Catalogue of the Roman Inscribed and Sculptured Stones in Carlisle Museum, Tullie House (1975), No. 228.Google Scholar

4 Wild, J. P., Germania xlvi (1968), 71–2 suggests that similar dress on the continent consisted of a single garment with two hemlines, rather than two separate garments.Google Scholar

5 E.g. B. M. Felletti Maj, Museo Nazionale Romano, i ritratti (1953), Nos. 195–7.

6 F. Braemer, Les stèles funéraires à personnages de Bordeaux (1959), 50.

7 Ferguson, R. S., Arch. Journ. xix (1862), 176–7; LS 500; Haverfield, op. cit. (note 3), No. 102; Wright and Phillips, op. cit. (note 3), No. 229.Google Scholar

8 Ferguson, R. S., Arch. Aeliana2 xi (1885), 127–9Google Scholar; Proc. Soc. Ant.2 x (1883–1885), 273–4Google Scholar; Trans. Cumberland & Westmorland Arch. Soc.1 viii (1883–1885), 317–20; RIB 961.Google Scholar

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10 See, especially, R. Carpenter, Greek Sculpture (1960), 109–51.

11 Ferguson, R. S., Trans. Cumberland & Westmorland Arch Soc.1 xii (1891–1892), 63; Haverfield op. cit. (note 3), No. 143; Wright and Phillips, op. cit. (note 3), No. 231.Google Scholar

12 Hodgson, C., Arch. Aeliana1 ii (1832), 419–20; LS 497; RIB 959.Google Scholar

13 MacIntire, J., Trans. Cumberland & Westmorland Arch. Soc.2 viii (1908), 384; RIB 962.Google Scholar

14 Mattingly, H., Sydenham, E. A. and Sutherland, C. H. V., The Roman Imperial Coinage iv, part iii (1949), pl. 3, 19–20, pl. 11, 5–8, pl. 15, 13–4; P. H. Webb, Ibid. v, part i (1927), pl. iv, 53–63. pl. vi, in, pl. ix, 133–7, Pl. xii, 174–5.Google Scholar

15 RIB 334.

16 LS 496; RIB 958.

17 LS 480; RIB 2029.

18 RIB 960.

19 Ferguson, R. S., Trans. Cumberland & Westmorland Arch. Soc.1 x (1888), 276–7Google Scholar; Proc. Soc. Ant.2 xii (1887–1889), 168; Wright and Phillips, op. cit. (note 3), No. 184.Google Scholar

20 RIB 952.

21 LS 494.